Chapter 541 540: In Depth Scouting (1)



A billow of steam escaped my lips as I sighed, staring down at the empty vial in my hands that numbered my fifth potion, meaning...

"Start pulling back! We have another three minutes!"

Slipping the empty vial into the pouch, I switched my magics around for a moment and covered the three warrior's retreats with a barrage of icicles, cutting down the monsters and undead that tried to get closer as they began to pull back.

Leone aided me in that effort as she sent small, condensed spheres of mana hurtling through the air towards the horde, exploding them just above the enemy and knocking them to the ground, burnt and charred.

Each fireball added more fog to the battlefield, lowering our vision slightly as we clustered together, but the winds thinned it out in moments.

Each of the warriors were releasing a torrent of steam each, their bodies far too warm for this atmosphere, and their sweat rolled onto the ground and turned into small crystals due to the cold, which had only dropped further over time.

There is a beauty in simplicity, and I utilized simplicity to its fullest with this Domain; lower temperatures and hurricane type winds created a Domain that few would be able to combat without a strong enough Core to rely on, and if they were lucky enough to have a Wind or Fire attainment.

Earth and Water would turn brittle or freeze over in these conditions, and I was getting to witness that first hand as some of the elites on either side tried to combat the temperatures with their Earth Mana, coating themselves in it and hoping to lessen the freeze, but...

My Ice burrowed its way into their cloaks and broke it apart, making them as immobile as the Goblins and Skeletons that they controlled.

With everything in the clearing being near frozen and immobile, Jahi took a deep breath and sent out her light discs, taking this opportunity to practice her control as she cut them down where they stood.

As for Anput, she took the Kanabo from Jahi and Nirinia and used them to hammer down whatever was left from Jahi's ranged slaughter, the Jackalkin controlling the weapons from a distance and smack what was left on the side of the head, cracking their skulls and killing them.

Nirinia just watched with a grin, her arms crossed as she observed the battlefield before turning towards me, saying "Not too bad, Kat. Even with a cloak on from the Princess herself, I still can feel that chill nipping at my bones..."

"It is rather impressive, especially that you can keep it up for around six minutes before needing to take a potion? Such a large scale spell draining half your Core in six minutes... and that's with you being able to utilize other spells alongside it too!"

I smiled over at Leone as she pointed out the vast amount of mana that was required for this, which made Nirinia nod her head in agreement before she grinned at Jahi, saying "Bluey, you got a real~ nice catch with this maid, you know that? Brains, beauty, brawn... She's got it all..."

The Djinn glanced at me before shaking her head, mock melancholy in her eyes as she added "If only I had found you first..! You're far too perfect of a woman, Kat..."I think you should take a look at

We all rolled our eyes at her antics, before I glanced at my pocket watch and said "Alright, let's get going."

Anput and Jahi canceled their spells and stepped back into the forest, with the Demoness grinning at the Djinn as she said "I know I'm lucky, Nirinia. More so than you~?"

Nirinia raised a brow as she followed Jahi out, leaving Leone and I to clean everything up as I got to work cancelling the Domain spell, letting it run on the mana left inside its runes as I severed the connection between me and it, with Leone inscribing runes onto the ground that shone red before fading away.

Giving me a nod, the Vampire turned and moved into the forest, and I took one last look at the slowed monsters and undead before I too slipped into the safety of the trees, joining the others as we began to make our way around the battlefield and towards the Monster Den.

Not even a minute later we heard a loud boom that shook the forest, making us turn to look at the Vampire responsible, who only returned our gazes with an innocent look - a look that was far too quickly broken as another boom sounded out a moment later, shaking the earth this time as a giant cloud of smoke was visible from the direction of the battlefield.

As she scratched her head and muttered out her reasoning - which came down to 'I wanted to do something...' - I glanced at my System notifications and sighed as I saw the large influx of assisted kills that came in, making me sigh one more time as I realized that the cute and refined Vampire seemed to be the cruelest of us all as she continuously committed what I considered 'war crimes'...

Though, again, they weren't that bad, and they weren't against sentient beings, so whatever...

We all shook our heads and continued our journey through the forest, heading towards the location that we had found yesterday - the stone covered, monster filled clearing that was presumably their spawning point.

"Remember, we're just going to go take a quick look inside and see what we're working with. When we have that idea of what's going on, we'll pull out and head over to the Bone Fortress to take a peak there as well. As it stands, if we could take on the mountain tomorrow by noon after plugging these two locations up, that'd be excellent..."

Reaching the edge of the forest again, Jahi turned and grinned at Leone as she said "Well, it would seem that you're desire to 'do something' was beneficial after all, Leone... Look."

The Demoness gestured towards the clearing, and we all smirked as we saw the giant ants all marching towards the edge of the clearing, leaving their posts as they curiously - or worriedly - looked towards the battlefield, leaving a large portion of everything open.

"Kat, sneak around and take point near the back. Anput, go off to the right, and Nirinia, take the left. We'll hit them all at once and confuse them more."

I gave Jahi a nod as I crouched low and began to move silently through the bushes, my eyes flickering between the ground in front of me, the trees, and the clearing as I made sure to track the monsters sight lines.